Tuesday, 30 August 2016

Having played through the Battle of Vanhaldenschlosse on the tabletop, the plan was then to go back and try to recreate it in Total War: Warhammer – The Grim & The Grave. Well, two of us did go through with the plan. The results were… interesting. For starters, although we’ve both played the game (James has played it a lot more than me), neither of us had ever played a multiplayer battle before. It was cool to see all the options, including being able to have up to 4 forces a side with either PC or human controllers. We decided to make use of this, as we realized that the battle we had fought was loaded with plenty of Lord choices, but you can only have one per army in TW. We also figured that it would be helpful to have PC allies controlling some of the forces to take the load off us a bit. We then set about roughly recreating the forces. The balance is a bit whacky given that unit sizes can vary wildly on the tabletop, but are set in TW. We went with what we felt best represented a TW version of the armies, which basically meant filling up all 80 available slots on either side. We chose the Castle Drakenhof map as it seemed a reasonable fit. We had no control over late-arriving flanking forces, which was slightly disappointing given that it’s something that happens regularly when you’re in the campaign. So we were not able to recreate the flanking element of the tabletop battle. Oh well, we figured we would just line things up and see what happened.

The loading screen. I was using Volkmar. James' lord was actually Vlad, so I assume he must have set a PC player as the no 1 player on his side for Ghorst to show up here. Or the game just moves in mysterious ways.

And then we launched the battle and my PC wept bitter tears of overloadedness.

Thursday, 25 August 2016

This is the final part of the Battle of Vanhaldenschlosse report. You can find the previous part here, or go back to the main page here.

Empire Turn 4

Empire Turn 4

The battlefield was littered with corpses and broken bones and everywhere the snow was turning red with the blood of the living. The Empire lines were holding their own, however the right flank was being sorely tested and the Grand Theogonist himself was in grave peril.

This is the first part of the Battle of Vanhaldenschlosse report. You can find the introduction here, and the main page here.Volkmar pulled his cloak tighter to try to shield himself from the cold air as the war altar upon which he rode swayed slightly in the wind. Despite the fact that spring had arrived in the Empire before this expedition set out, winter still clung to Sylvania. A thick layer of snow lay on the ground and the biting wind and dark clouds overhead made it clear that more could soon be forthcoming. The Grand Theogonist had no doubt that these brooding clouds were the reason that Sylvania had not escaped winter’s clutches. It was said that these clouds were a constant presence over this land nowadays. Volkmar scowled. It had always been a cursed place, but now it was cursed, dark and cold.Despite the snow, the army had been making steady progress as it pressed deeper into Sylvania far faster than would normally have been possible. The warnings which they were acting upon had stressed the need for haste, and to that end they had engaged a pair of wizards from the Light College to help ease their passage. The entire march across the Empire and into Sylvania had taken less than half the time it should have. Volkmar did not pretend to understand how the wizards achieved this (indeed, the less Sigmar-fearing men such as himself knew of such practices, the better), but it was hard not to notice that the days seemed to drag on far longer than normal, and the way the villagers they passed along the way seemed to be moving in slow motion. With any luck, their mission to thwart the plans of the foul necromancer Helman Ghorst would soon be accomplished. The force they had assembled was formidable and their arrival in Sylvania had been incredibly swift. Already the ruined towers of Vanhaldenschlosse were coming into view over the tops of the trees. If he were not Volkmar the Grim, he might have allowed himself a slightly satisfied smile.As if to prove that he was right to be such a grumpy pessimist, these thoughts were interrupted by shouted warnings from the pistoliers at the head of the column, followed by pistols firing and the eerie howls of wolves. The familiar moment of queasiness came and went as the Light wizards aborted their time-altering incantations, and the world seemed to blur and then settle around them. The sights and sounds of the forest around them became clearer, and movement could be seen through the trees.Ignoring the cold, Volkmar now shrugged the cloak from his shoulders and reached for his weapon. They had marched hard and could not have hoped to have made better progress than this. Now it was time to fight.The packs of wolves and ghouls that threw themselves at the Empire army did little to slow it down as it marched the remaining few miles to Vanhaldenschlosse. The formations spread out into a battle line as they came to the clearing around the ruined castle. An army of the undead was ready and waiting for them.Volkmar drew the horses pulling the war altar to a halt as he surveyed the enemy lines. The experience hard-won from countless battles over the years allowed him to assess the strength of the undead force, and it gave him some grim satisfaction. The army he led was the stronger. It would be a battle, but they had the advantage.A tired-looking pistolier galloped up to spoil the mood. "My lord, more undead are approaching from the west. They will be here within the hour".Volkmar’s expression darkened once more into its customary scowl. Whatever advantage they held, it would not last for long."Best get on with it then," he muttered.

In honour of the new The Grim & The Grave expansion for Total War: Warhammer, we were invited to organise one of our traditional battle reports based around the characters being added to the game. We will then go back and try to recreate the battle in Total War, and see how that plays out.

Monday, 1 August 2016

Sorry for the lack of campaign updates. I seem to be a bit busy at the moment. I still have several games to catch up on, and one more game to organise. I'll get there in the end, I promise...In general hobby terms, I have been slightly lacking focus again. I started working on some MOM Miniaturas Dwarves that I have been looking forward to tackling, but then shifting priorities mean that I have altered course again. I will have to come back to the Dwarves.

The almost-finished prototype is shown at the front on the right. They will have the same colour scheme as my old Marauder Ironbreakers. And the Siegebreaker Ogres, when they're done too.

Empire Swordsmen with special round Ostland bull-head shields. I hope to get 40 of these done in a couple of waves.

On the weekend I also managed to play another game of Kings of War. I had a camera with me, so took a few pictures. Some of them came out OK. But the game ended up a bit of a blow-out, so I thought I would just share a few shots here and be done with it. Busy busy busy, don't you know.

Lining up against Ben's Undead. Having not really done it before, I thought I would try a shooting-heavy list just to see how it performed, and then of course we rolled up a scenario where you have to move. An obvious flaw with this plan.